Indicadores de gestión departamento de cobranza

Referring back to the research question “By which means and to what extend do alternative and traditional media provide different perspectives on the situation of refugees coming to Europe?” a differentiated answer will be given.

The article analysed from Het Parool could for the most part be qualified as an alternative media in Fuchs’ understanding. Even though it did not take side for refugees explicitly, the author still did position himself against those political leaders who decide to construct a wall or fence on their borders to keep refugees out. It pays special attention to a pragmatic, real- istic-dialectic inspection of the issue by stressing the potential future importance of refugees on the labour market. Yet besides the explicit positioning in favour of the refugees, the article also lacks a materialistic component as well as the emphasis on the ideal of a cooperative and participatory society by for example supporting social struggles. The article could have mentioned initiatives that try to stop the construction of such walls and fences. Yet, after all, it can be considered rather alternative.

The article chosen from die tageszeitung was showing evidence confirming all hypotheses derived from Fuchs’ theory and therewith can be called alternative without reproach. Only the part of the hypothesis suggesting that the rule of sexism and of patriarchy should be reflected has not been validated. But as this is no condition but only one aspect among others that can lead to the qualification as “alternative”, this should not further play a big role.

The examined article from the gurdian also provided data which proved the formulated hy- potheses right. Amongst others, mentioning a counter-movement lead to this conclusion. This group of opponents must be considered part of the counter-public sphere as defined by Negt and Kluge. Moreover, as in Het Parool, much emphasis was put on the provision of back- ground information, explanations and expert opinions. Though what was missing in compar- ison to the article from die tageszeitung was the explicit taking sides for the oppressed. But of course one has to keep in mind that it might be asked too much to find all of the criteria in only one article, as one article must reduce its content to certain aspects as well and cannot include all aspects the author would like to include.

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Comparing these three articles, the one found in die tageszeitung is the best example of alternative media after Fuchs’ definition. The guardian only lacks a confirmation for hypothe- sis no. 2, whereas Het Parool is only really proving hypothesis one (partly) and four. The outcome of the analysis of the alternative sample showed that articles focused more on a pragmatic presentation of the issue than on the representation of the powerless and sup- pressed. This finding does rather not support the idea of the potential mobilising role alterna- tive media can play.

Among the sample of traditional newspapers, a bigger deviation from the expected outcome could be manifested. The article taken from de Telegraaf bore the biggest surprise. Not only was the group of people who protest against refugee acceptance presented in a relatively objective manner, also did the author of the article include suggestions on better possibilities of citizen participation in the political decision-making process. By doing so, it is in fact even suggested a way to abolish the emergence of such frustrated and insecure racist citizen- movements. Moreover, the presentation of how other people deal with the situation of having refugees living next door is a suggestion of alternatives to repressive structures shown in the ‘main’ article. It is furthermore explained why groups of citizens feel threatened by the arrival of refugees. As a consequence, one must come to the conclusion that this article holds evi- dence of a number of criteria of alternative media.

The article taken from Bild, in contrast, provides data to confirm Fuchs’ assumptions on tra- ditional media. The article reduced content to a very one-sided, one-dimensional point of view. There was no counter-voice included, neither was the presentation of the issues so- phisticated or complete. Instead, it fostered suppressive patterns.

The article taken from The Sun must be located on the same level as Bild. It was resorted to emotionalism and sensationalism to a large extend. Furthermore, no counter-movement has been mentioned, instead, reality was simplified by stating that “all Germans” had turned against “traitor” Angela Merkel. The author of the article positions himself rather on the side of “the Germans” by including simple numbers to support the point of view. The small article on a refugee baby being attacked by neo-Nazis is one last indication which confirms the hypotheses for traditional media: When cooperation is granted for babies but not for adults in need, then this must be nothing more than a little emotional, thus popular, thus sellable story.

What can be concluded is that the articles did not verify the hypotheses as expected as the hypotheses could only be verified to a limited extend. Most problematic is the discovery that the article derived from De Telegraaf did show indications that are, in Fuchs’ opinion, indices for alternative media. In the methodological chapter it was said that both the occurrence of Fuchs’ criteria and the claim that only alternative media could provide critical content should

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be tested. This case can be considered a proof for the fact that Fuchs’ claim about the relation between alternative media and critical content must be rejected. Also traditional media, for example De Telegraaf as shown here, can provide a critical perspective by dealing with con- tent aspects that are expected to only be found in alternative media. Accordingly, Fuchs’ claim that only alternative media can provide critical content must be refuted. This can be considered a main finding of the conducted analysis.

With regard to an international comparison, one can derive from the outcomes that the Ger- man cases from sample 1 and from sample 2 did meet the expectations, whereas the other countries showed deviation. The British articles did so to a limited extend, just deviating slightly from the expectations by not showing evidence of certain criteria. Thus as a tendency, the article from the guardian in sample 1 qualified as alternative and the article from The Sun in sample 2 qualifies as traditional media. The Dutch newspapers did not confirm Fuchs’ theory. Het Parool is the newspaper showing least evidence in the alternative sample 1. Though it can still be considered alternative, as some aspects could be found. De Telegraaf is the second Dutch newspaper which did not meet the expectations as it comprised elements that Fuchs qualifies as criteria for alternative media.

Fuchs’ ideal vision of an article that deals exclusively with the interests of the dominated has not been found among the cases. This is not problematic as the objective was to find out to what extend the classification can be retraced in the samples. Fuchs’ ideal picture of alterna- tive media would mean a devotion to critical content in his sense with no exceptions. Pre- sumably publications such as Pravda and neues deutschland could be considered such ideal versions of alternative media. Pravda (English "Truth") was the official newspaper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and was one of the most influential papers in the coun- try. The goal was to make workers write for workers, including their interests, points of views and struggles. This of course must be considered highly alternative in Fuchs’ conception at the process level which has not been considered in this work. Though it is important to keep in mind Fuchs’ limitation of defending Marxist views when it comes to historical ‘errors’, how he puts it.59 _{So it can by no means be claimed that Fuchs would support media that propagate} any activities that would support violent regimes or dictatorships.

Also the German daily newspaper neues deutschland would probably satisfy Fuchs’ require- ments to alternative media in a more integral fashion than the here analysed sample of news- papers. It has a political mission as well as the aim to advance a certain ideal shared by Fuchs. Though here again one must urgently be careful when it comes to repressive tenden- cies of extreme leftists. What must be paid the biggest possible attention to is not to leave

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the news coverage be led by political intentions rather than facts. As neues deutschland was influential in times of the German Democratic Republic, there are with no doubt a number of activities which must be condemned as wrong. Neues deutschland reported for instance on August 22, 1968 on the military intervention to smash the Prague Spring as an “activity to help the Czechoslovakian brother people” in response to a request from the party- and state officials from the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. Neither these people, nor the request ex- isted. The risk is that such media positioning themselves on the extreme left do not intend to be objective, but biased on purpose. They further serve as a means to mobilize for political activity and political organisation of the extreme left.60

It cannot be stated that Fuchs‘ approach provides evidence to sympathise with such extreme leftist propaganda, though from a theoretical point of view, not very much can be found that explicitly draws a line, except when Fuchs mentions different ways of interpreting Marxism and that ‘errors’ shall not be repeated.61

It shall furthermore be referred back to what has been proposed in the introduction as a background- intention of this work and what has been addressed in the sub- research ques- tion: “To what extend can the provision of a critical perspective by alternative media as claimed by Fuchs contribute to a more independent and complete news coverage as de- manded by Lippmann?”. It has been said that Fuchs’ classification is tested in terms of to what extend it is apt to classify media in the real world. The underlying intention was to find out about the potential of alternative media to contribute to a situation in which media would provide a more integral news coverage instead of giving a manipulated “look out of a (tinted) window”. Such an ideal idea of news coverage initially formulated by Lippmann demands for the inclusion of hidden facts as for example the thought derived from critical theory, that any privilege is connected to a discrimination.62 _{The inclusion of the voices of the dominated and} the attempt to convey a picture of the issue that includes contradictions and to make an effort to include all relevant perspectives in a report, all these alternative characteristics do contrib- ute without doubt to a news coverage that approaches towards Lippmanns idea. What is problematic about alternative media is the extreme resort to Marxist ideology, because it can be assumed that Lippmann did not have such an ideological complexion in mind. Lippmann asks for objective but integral information provision by researchers whereas Fuchs asks for leftist information provision by politically inclined people. Especially the fact that Fuchs wants normal citizens to participate in media production processes whereas Lippmann wanted re- searchers and professionals to perform the job of information provision turned out to be more

60 _{Cf. Bundeszentrale für politsche Bildung: Linksextreme Medien. URL: www.bpb.de/politik/extrem-}

ismus/linksextremismus/33630/medien. Last accessed on December 18th, 2015.

61 _{Cf. Fuchs: Foundations. P. 24.} 62_{Cf. Fuchs: Foundations. P. 25.}

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of a contradiction than has been assumed in the beginning. Ideology always seems to get in the way when trying to give an informative overview on an issue. To explore this dilemma, a new thesis would need to be written. To sum up, alternative media do rather not offer a con- tribution to an objective news coverage because they are too much ideologically disposed.